1. Technical Field
This invention relates generally to merchandise sales stands, and, more particularly, to stands that are compact and mobile for transport and that open up for merchandise display.
2. Background Art
Garden center, plant nursery, and produce retail is an area of business that could greatly benefit from a mobile display stand. Especially in cooler climates, the traditional garden center or fresh produce shop may have difficulty in making enough profit during the growing and gardening season to cover year-around expenses such as building maintenance, real estate mortgages, real estate taxes, advertising, and wages. In addition, it is especially difficult to support a stationary garden center in many rural areas, where the lack of population makes the growing season sales less lucrative. Such problems have limited the number of garden centers built in northern climates and in smaller towns. The garden center businessman with a mobile stand could overcome these problems by moving his business according to the seasons and weather and taking merchandise to any location having many prospective customers. Many other businesses could also greatly benefit from a mobile display stand. For example, a saddle and tack business could follow the workers and performers in a rodeo circuit. A recreational clothing business could travel to parks and resorts, or a craft business could follow the craft fair circuit.
Some designs for mobile stands are available, but each has one or more drawbacks. For example, some designs are inappropriate for secure and dust-free transport of merchandise or for attractive display of large volumes of merchandise. Some designs are complicated to set up and take down. Some designs are poorly equipped or poorly designed for salesman-customer interaction and consultation. Many of the designs allow display of merchandise and interaction with customers on only one side of the stand. Many of the designs allow for only one business to be conducted in the stand at a time.
One type of mobile stand is the food concession stand commonly used at county fairs. Typically, these concession stands are cubicals on wheels with a window reaching down to about waist-level of the people inside the stand. One or more people usually serve food through the window or over a counter.
Another type of mobile stand is the portable stage for theater and concert productions. The stage in Berranger et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 4,720,945) is made of a central body, a rear body, and a front body, which slide apart to deepen into a theater stage. The front body has a rigid canopy, a sliding low floor, and two side floors that pivot out from between the chassis and the low floor to support the low floor. To set up the Barranger stage, numerous walls and floor extensions and the canopy must be slid and/or pivoted into position. The stage in Wenger, (U.S. Pat. No. 3,181,203) has multiple floor sections that are supported and connected by jacks and bracket elements. Setting up the Wenger stage requires numerous steps to slide, position, and bracket the floor sections and to pivot the canopy.
What is still needed for use in the gardening retail industry and in other industries is a mobile display and sales stand that is simple, efficient, and quick to set up for business and to fold up and secure for travel. The mobile display stand needs to provide a large surface area for attractive and easily-reachable display of merchandise. Also, what is needed is a mobile display stand that is self-contained with utilities and office equipment for use in locations that do not offer utility hookups or office facilities. What is needed is a mobile display stand that allows walk-around shopping with display and customer-salesman interaction on a plurality of sides of the stand. A mobile stand is needed that allows more than one company or vendor to conveniently and attractively conduct separate businesses in a single mobile display stand.